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{
    "id": 3641694,
    "uri": "https://api.kexp.org/v2/plays/3641694/?format=api",
    "airdate": "2026-04-13T21:08:40-07:00",
    "show": 66446,
    "show_uri": "https://api.kexp.org/v2/shows/66446/?format=api",
    "image_uri": "https://coverartarchive.org/release/19d99103-2b3b-467a-a42e-44241fd10e43/29615147204-500.jpg",
    "thumbnail_uri": "https://coverartarchive.org/release/19d99103-2b3b-467a-a42e-44241fd10e43/29615147204-250.jpg",
    "song": "Dancing in the Dark",
    "track_id": null,
    "recording_id": "77276c54-60e5-4c22-b5cf-8e94d9d53953",
    "artist": "Downtown Boys",
    "artist_ids": [
        "4bab4841-5584-4c04-a933-3f537fbe3aad"
    ],
    "album": "Full Communism",
    "release_id": null,
    "release_group_id": "e4ac84b6-9087-4a4c-9416-ee3444a1cc6f",
    "labels": [
        "Don Giovanni Records"
    ],
    "label_ids": [
        "dcea8cc5-4fc4-4f77-aeef-3e5a14863776"
    ],
    "release_date": "2015-05-05",
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    "comment": "Downtown Boys’ version of “Dancing in the Dark” does not treat Bruce Springsteen’s song as sacred text. It grabs it by the collar and drags it into the band’s own bilingual, politically charged, high-voltage universe. Released on Full Communism in 2015, the cover lands inside an album already defined by urgency, confrontation, and a refusal to separate personal feeling from public pressure. That context matters, because Downtown Boys were never a band interested in nostalgia as comfort. Out of Providence, they built a sound that was blistering, communal, and deeply aware of systemic violence, and so their take on “Dancing in the Dark” feels less like homage than reclamation. The original’s longing remains, but the mood changes under Downtown Boys’ hands. Restlessness becomes attack. Frustration becomes propulsion. The song’s famous ache is still there, but it now feels crowded by history, by politics, by the sheer speed at which the band plays it. That transformation is what makes the cover memorable. Rather than smoothing the track into reverence, Downtown Boys reveal how elastic Springsteen’s writing can be when handed to artists with different stakes and a different temperature. Their version is furious, joyous, and just unstable enough to feel necessary. It is a cover that honors the song by refusing to behave around it. \u2028Listen: https://downtownboys.bandcamp.com/track/dancing-in-the-dark-2",
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    "location_name": "Default",
    "play_type": "trackplay"
}